Nicaragua was the opening opponent, but outside obstacles turned out to be the real foe as the United States began its quest for baseball gold with a 4-1 victory Saturday.
The game didn’t start until 10:30 a.m., a half-hour later than scheduled, after both teams experienced transportation problems.
After taking 8 a.m. batting practice at Georgia Tech, the U.S. didn’t arrive at Fulton County Stadium until 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes before the scheduled start. The team bus, the same one used by Nicaragua an hour earlier, was running late.
And after staying up late to attend the Opening Ceremony, the Americans looked as if they were sleepwalking through the early going, trailing 1-0 after four innings to a team they routed in four games last month by a 47-11 margin.
“I’ve never gone into an outing with four hours of sleep,” said starting pitcher Kris Benson, a Clemson junior and the first overall pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates in last month’s major-league draft. “But once the game started I got into a groove and it didn’t affect me.”
The U.S. offense never really came alive, managing only six hits, but scored four runs in the fifth and sixth. That was enough for Benson, who grew up in nearby Marietta, Ga.
He became stronger as the game went on and got the victory, allowing seven hits while striking out seven and walking two in eight innings. Braden Looper pitched a perfect ninth.
“It meant the world to me,” Benson said. “I wanted to pitch in the opening game and get off to a good start. I was pitching in front of a lot of people who knew me.”
A crowd of about 30,000 attended.
The college players composing the U.S. team all were competing in their first Olympics, but were equally excited by attending the Opening Ceremony, an opportunity they didn’t want to pass up.
“We wanted to experience the magnitude of the Games to the fullest,” catcher A.J. Hinch said.
So they went, even though it didn’t end until nearly 1 a.m. They got back to their rooms at 2 a.m. and had a 6 a.m. wakeup call.
The Nicaraguan starters opted to skip the Opening Ceremony.
“It was their decision, but it was a tough one,” said Nicaragua coach Darin Van Tassell, an assistant coach at Georgia Southern who took over the team last month.
“They passed up the moment of a lifetime.”
Although the U.S. team didn’t look ready Saturday to knock off favored Cuba just yet, the Americans were good enough. Their next game is Monday night against South Korea.
As for the Cubans, second baseman Antonio Pacheco hit two home runs and set an Olympic record with seven RBIs in their 19-8 victory over Australia. It was Cuba’s 135th consecutive win in international tournament play.
Designated hitter Orestes Kindelan had two home runs and five RBIs. His second homer came after a 1-hour-22-minute rain delay.
The Cubans were merely toying with the Aussies. They sent out their bottom-rung pitchers, conserving their top arms for Sunday night’s game against Japan, the first key matchup of round-robin play.
Japan won its opening game, 12-2 over the Netherlands. Yasuyaki Saigo’s three-run pinch homer completed a six-run rally in the seventh, and prompted the 10-run rule to kick in after the seventh.
